Ahmet and Mehmet are having their morning "kehve" (coffee) at a
cafe in Turkish provincial town deep in Anatolia . Ahmet is scanning
the newspaper.

Mehmet: What's new in the "Turan Daily News"?

Ahmet: There's a story on page one about the Israeli foreign minister
Lieberman saying that Turkey should give Mt. Ararat to Ermenistan.

Mehmet: Yes, I saw that on TV last night. I looked up the map of
Turkey, but I couldn't find Mt. Ararat. There must be some mistake.

There's no Mt. Ararat.

Ahmet: You never know... it could be a Jewish trick. They want to
confuse us. Maybe it's Mt. Arafat.

Mehmet: I thought that was in Holy Mecca. Anything else in the
newspaper?

Ahmet: That Lieberman says Turkey should recognize the Armenian
Genocide.

Mehmet: Now, I like that. We all know how Armenians committed genocide
against the Turks. Yes, we should not keep silent any longer: we
should publicize the Armenian Genocide of our people. I guess the
Israelis are pushing for genocide recognition to improve their ties
with us. I tell you, Ahmet, Jews are afraid of us. They know we have
atomic bombs at the Incerlik base, near Adana.

Ahmet: Don't start me on Incerlik. Those Gavoor Ermenler are now
saying Incerlik beongs to them. Next thing they will claim all of
Eastern Turkey belongs to them. We made a mistake... We shouldn't
have allowed a single Armenian survive their deportation. This is
what happens when you are soft-hearted.

Ahmet: Forget them. Ermenistan has fewer than two million people. I
am talking about the Israelis. They will have no chance against our
invincible navy when we escort the flotilla to Gaza.

Mehmet: It's not going to be like the parting of the Red Sea for Moses
and the Israelis. Hey, did you know Gaza was originally called Gazi,
after "Gazi" Mustapha Kemal the Conqueror? Jews changed the name to
Gaza. You, of course, remember how Ataturk beat the Gavoor British
and French forces in Palestine during the First World War.

Ahmet: Of course, I do. Why, the capital of Jordan is still called
"Amaan" because that's what the Gavoor British and French soldiers
were wailing when our mighty Gazi Ataturk put them to the yataghan.

You know something Mehmet, Thanks to our educational system we know
so much about the glorious history of Turkey.

We know so much. Talking about Ataturk, I hear some people are calling
Erdogan "Ataturk II."

Mehmet: I don't know about that... Ataturk wouldn't like some of the
things Erdogan is doing.

Ahmet: But Mehmet, arkhadash. Gazi Ataturk would love Erdogan. Just
wait and see: Erdogan will conquer all the Arab countries, without
even firing a bullet-from Morocco to Kuwait-and restore our Ottoman
Empire. Tell you something... I think we should call him Erdogan
Sultan and Davutoglu his Vizier.

Mehmet: I don't trust that Davutoglu fellow. With that name and
face, those glasses, his teaching profession... he must surely be
the son of a deunme Jew... "Son of David." Check it out... Read
the bestseller "The White Man." It will tell you about the Deunme
-Freemason-Zionist-Rothschild conspiracy. His father was probably
from Salonika.

Ahmet: Those Mountain Turks are in the news again. Why don't they
come down from the mountains and join us-the civilized, peace loving
Turks of the lowlands?

Mehmet: They are getting too fancy for their breeches. Now they want
us to call them Kurd. Say it fast, it sounds like Turk. How soon
they forget that for years we allowed them to loot Gavoor Ermenler
and steal their women. Weren't Sultan Abdul Hamid's Hamidiyes all
Mountain Turk bandits?

Ahmet: Some people have violence and greed in their DNA. You can't
change that.

Mehmet: What's DNA?

Ahmet: I think it's a spice or something Kurds sprinkle on their
shish-kebab. It makes them violent and raises their blood pressure.

Ahmet: Ahhh... What are we going to do about Cyprus? Those Gavoor
Greeks want to drill for underwater oil near the Turkish island.

Mehmet: Don't worry, arkhadash. After we finish off the Israel navy,
the cowardly Greeks would keep their mouth shut-just like their
Patriarch in Istanbul. Cyprus... I mean "Kbrz." What kind of name is
that for a country?

Attaboy Jirair!This is hilariously delicious.We will crown you as the King of Satire. We are sorely in need of new satirists. We have not had a good երգիծագիր -satirist ergitsagir since Baronian, Otian and Ler Kamsar.The only fine point Jirair omitted is that those clowns were in fact sipping gavour kahveh, Հայկական Սուրճ-Armenian Coffee .

Misnomers GaloreBy Jirair Tutunjian, 8 September 2014Panama hats dont come from Panama. The German measles did not originate in Germany. Eau de Cologne doesnt come from France. The Danes dont eat Danish cookies. The french fries didnt originate in France. Arabic numerals dont come from Arabia neither do the Arabian Nights fairy tales. Fenugreek (chaman of basterma) doesnt come from Greece. There are hundreds of similar misidentifications, misnomers in the global culture.(Panama hats come from Ecuador. The measles was tagged German by the hostile British during their war with Germany. Eau de Cologne is manufactured in the northern German city of Cologne. The danish is an American invention. It was the Belgians who invented french fries. Most of the Arabian Nights stories hail from Iran, India, Beluchistan, Afghanistan). Fenugreek is believed to be of Middle Eastern origin but India is the biggest producer.One nation which has been particularly lucky in the misattribution game is Turkey. Because of historic circumstances, ignorance, or sheer luck, a number of products are wrongly assumed to be of Turkish origin.Take Turkish coffee. **Coffee was discovered in Ethiopia by a shepherd who noticed that when his goats chewed on a wild berry they became livelier. Ethiopians soon began to grind and boil the berries to make a refreshing brew. The drink was called coffee because the berry was discovered in a place called Kaffa. From Ethiopia the coffee crossed the Red Sea to Yemen and then north to the Middle East. Armenian merchants, from the Ottoman Empire, introduced the drink to Vienna, Paris, and London. Because the Armenians came from the Ottoman Empire, Europeans wrongly assumed that they were Turks and the coffee a Turkish product.Turkish Delight is of Iranian origin. A 19th century British tourist discovered the soft candy in Constantinople and shipped home a number of boxes and named them Turkish delight. The name stuck. Turkish Delights Iranian name is ahbisa. Arabs called it rahat el hulkum (contentment/rest of the throat). From hulkum we get lokhum sweets. Lokhum is, of course, another word some assume to be Turkish.The semi-precious turquoise is not native to Anatolia. In the 16th century a French merchant imported the blue-to-green stone from Turkey and named it turquoise. The Turkish stones came from the Khorasan province of Iran. Iranians call it phirouzeh meaning victory. The Armenian version is perouz. Pharaohs imported the gem from Monitu in the Sinai peninsula. In recent years Turkish tourism promoters have began calling the Mediterranean shores of Asia Minor Turquoise Coast.The footstool called ottoman is so-called because Napoleons soldiers saw it for the first time in Egypt, then officially part of the Ottoman Empire, although the ruling Memlukes didnt pay much attention to the sultan in Constantinople. The ottoman was a traditional Middle Eastern stool and had nothing to do with the Ottomans or the Turks.Everywhere in Germany, almost as popular as the bratwurst, is the doner sandwich. Because doner was introduced to Germany by Turkish immigrants, Turkey claims the sandwich is of Turkish origin, although it existed in the Middle East centuries before Turks showed up from Central Asia. The roasted meat on the vertical spit is known as gyro in Greek. Gyro is the Greek word for turning. The Armenians call the same dish tarna (turn). Doner/donneur means turning in Turkish.***Of course, being the origin of a popular product carries a lot of cache. In addition to prestige, it can have commercial benefits. Thus France has acquired international copyright for the Champagne and Cognac names. Non-French manufacturers of sparkling wine and brandy cant call their drinks champagne or cognac which are French place names. In the past decade Cyprus, Lebanon, and several European nations have fought legal battle for the right of using the name Halloum for their cheese.Although it has benefited from the misidentification of coffee, turquoise, and turkish delight, the Republic of Turkey is ever eager to appropriate even more place names, and in so doing distort history to its advantage.The famed Mount Ararat of Biblical resonance has become Agri Dagh. Historic Cilicia has become Kukurova. Dersim (named after an Armenian clergyman called Der Simon) has become Tunceli. Of course, long ago Constantinople became Istanbul. Embarrassed by its names association with the large and clumsy fowl, Turkey has unsuccessfully tried to brand itself as Turkiye. In the past century, Ankara has turkified thousands of Asia Minor place names (from Armenian and Greek) in a well-organized strategy to erase all signs of the original inhabitants of Asia Minor. For a while, it even christened (sorry, we mean re-named) Kurds Mountain Turks. That campaign also failed. Kurds have asserted their name, their language, and identity.Despite its obsessive efforts to rebrand the topography of Asia Minor and make it wall-to-wall Turkic, Ankara still faces a huge task. Izmir still has echoes of its original Greek Smyrna name, so does Konia (Iconium), Ankara (Angora), and Kayseri (Caesaria). But they say where theres a will, theres a way. One day the ever-diligent Turkish historians will go through the vast library of the Wise and Illustrious Sultan Abdul Hamid II and discover that these cities were founded by Turkic tribes thousands of years before Noahs Ark landed on Mt. Araratsorry, we mean Agri Dagh. Turkeys notorious historians have already decided Anatolia (Sunrise Land of Sunrise in Greek) derives from the Turkish Ana Dolu (Pregnant Mother). It was so named by the same.you guessed itancient Turkic tribes.Incidentally, the Turkish yataghan sword is not a borrowed word or weapon. It is genuinely Turkish.

====Dear Jirair, you have a very sharp pen and a keen sense of humor.How about you write a satire about all the furkish words, (sur)names and culture in general that we use day in and day out.See furkish kahveh here;http://savvytraveler.../feature2.shtml** Now that we hear some actors at the Mythbusters are exiting, can we hire them to BUST SOME OF OUR MYTHS? http://www.foxnews.c...hara-axed-from/